


you're all i need to stay here

by orphan_account



Series: let's say in this universe... [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, F/M, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:17:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2140314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha's the drummer for Barney's band, and Clint finds her very, for lack of better word, hot.</p><p>Prompt one on <a href="http://buckybaarnes.co.vu/post/94804081479/just-another-really-long-aus-i-really-want-post">this</a> list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're all i need to stay here

**Author's Note:**

> First Clint/Natasha whoop whoop!
> 
> Title shamelessly stolen from [Owls by Jon D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NozPxmgTmag).
> 
> Yell at me on [tumblr](http://buckybaarnes.co.vu).

Okay, this looks bad.

Barney had said he was inviting his band over for practice, and that they needed to use the basement and Clint was more than welcome to watch, but he hadn’t expected _her_ to be here. Her being Nat, and Nat being the single hottest, probably scariest drummer in the entirety of the Midwest; otherwise known as the subject of many of Clint’s more shameful fantasies.

Yeah, he knows projection’s a bad thing and that she’s worth so much more than the idle attraction of a sixteen year old boy with a penchant for dogs and pizza, but he still finds her absolutely infatuating.

“All right,” Barney mutters, pulling Clint and the rest of the band out of their thoughts. “We’re t minus three days ‘til Rockfest, and even if we’re just doing an opener we still have to be fucking _awesome_.”

“We _are_ fuckin’ awesome, dipshit,” the bassist mumbles. Clint wrinkles his nose; the guy is the picture of every punk-rock band stereotype. Shaggy brown hair, dreamy blue-grey eyes, and a body that rivals a god, Bucky “It’s Serg to you” Barnes is a grade-A asshole. His boyfriend’s nice enough though, Clint supposes.

He’s spent a lot of quality time beside him on the couch, and being the ear to his constantly running, frequently pornographic mouth.

“Fuck off,” Barney bites back, grinning. “Nat, count us in.”

Clint turns his attention to the drummer and has to actively force himself to stop from sighing dreamily. Jesus Christ, he’s smitten, and he, and Steve since he’s told him, both know it. She brushes her bangs off her forehead before grabbing the sticks (and isn’t that just the mental image his teenage mind needs), and holds them high above her head before clicking them together and yelling, “One, two, three, four!”

And then, the room erupts in sound.

He’ll never advocate for the punk genre. The shit’s terrible, but he’ll definitely advocate for individual skill. While Barney is his brother and a total asshole, he can play guitar like a madman and his vocals ain’t so bad as Clint makes them out to be. Barnes is a dick but he’s damn good with his fingers; and that’s not going off of what Steve tells him, though he knows from that that he must be good with his fingers if Steve talks about it so damn much.

Fucking Christ.

Nat, however, is an enigma. Her outward appearance barely registers a change, but he can see the sweat collecting at her temples, her upper lip, running down the side of her neck. Her feet keep perfect time with Barnes’ stops, her hands never ceasing in their heedless tapping of the quick rhythm. She’s beautiful, as always, but especially when she works. It’s like she was meant to be here, applying herself in the most basic way her senses know.

He taps his foot to the rhythm she sets, listening to four sets of the same content before considering climbing off the couch and heading upstairs to order pizza or bother anyone loitering at the Barton household. Their parents are almost never home, and the shitheads around the block know it, so they always find half put out blunts or empty vodka bottles stashed around their house.

Regardless, it’s fucking annoying.

Nonetheless, just as he’s getting up, Nat glances up at him and quirks a smile so small, so faint, that at first Clint thinks he misses it. But then he catches the way she peeks over at him every few beat, and he decides to stay right there. Steve’s mindless, tone deaf singing doesn’t even bother him because he’s pinned. Hopelessly and completely pinned.

It’s another hour and a half before they decide to take a break. Barney insists on cooking, but when Clint laughs and offers to order in, everyone else agrees perhaps a little too enthusiastically. He sighs, and relaxes into the couch while Barney goes off to grumble and make stir fry while Barnes calls for Chinese, before he turns to find Nat sitting beside him, legs tucked beneath her elegantly.

“You like to perch,” she says, as though it’s normal for them to even speak.

Intelligently he replies, “Huh?”

She makes a vague gesture towards his body, one leg stuffed beneath his ass, the other crunched up tight so he can rest his chin on his knee. “That’s perching, moron,” she continues. “You shoot or something?”

He nods, combing his fingers through his hair because how in the hell did she figure that out based on posture alone. “Yeah,” he replies. “Barney does archery too, but I’m better than him. If he tells you different, he’s fuckin’ lying.”

Oddly enough, it startles a laugh out of her. Startles, because even Clint can see the surprise tugging at the corners of her eyes before she lets her passive mask fall back over her features. Her eyes though, sharp and observant as they are, skim down his frame, taking in every detail, before she tilts her head analytically and makes a noise like confirmation in the back of her throat.

Before Clint can ask what, he takes an elbow to the ribs.

“Fuck, Steve watch where you- Holy shit, can’t you wait?!”

This probably can go on top of all the things Clint wished he didn’t have to see and be safe by a long shot because 1). as much as Clint’s into dick on occasion, he doesn’t like to be surprised with the sight of it right in his face and 2). Steve has a nicer ass than he’s been letting on, for a skinny shrimp, and Clint finds the fact that he’s been even considering Steve’s ass to be scarring in and of itself.

A quick glance to Nat reveals her to be all but uncaring of the fact that people are fucking within five feet of her, and he almost finds himself wishing to block the view though he knows she’s seen far worse. Hell, she probably has.

“For fuck’s sake,” he mumbles, running his fingers down his face and scrubbing off some phantom itch that won’t scrub off.

“Ah,” Nat murmurs. He peers up and finds her with a slight knowing smile, green eyes shadowed under the thick curtain of dark lashes. “You’ve never stuck around long enough to see them during ‘breaks’.”

“Nope, and I don’t think I will be anymore either.”

“It’s usually worse.”

“I believe you.”

She raises a perfectly tweezed eyebrow at that, the stark white makeup all but highlighting her intrigue as she gives him another one of those evaluative looks. This time, she scoots a little closer and tosses her arm over the backrest of the couch. “You do?” she asks, sounding bemused but challenging.

Sparing a glance at the two still going at it, Steve (thankfully) mostly covered up by the gigantic Ramones sweatshirt he wore as Bucky unashamedly ruts against his ass and puts his tongue into his mouth. Gross. Clint never understood tongue action when kissing; it just ends up making a huge mess.

“Yeah, I really do,” he says, pulling his attention away from perhaps the most surreal thing he’s ever seen.

They sit in contented silence, well as silent as it can be with the sound of skin slapping skin punctuated by keening whines (Steve) and guttural groans (Bucky). Clint distracts himself by tapping out a beat against his knees, something like Nat was managing earlier, but he can’t quite manage it. After about five minutes, she reaches over and places her long-fingered hands atop his and slows down the beat, evens it out. She hums under her breath, tone soft as she mimics Barney’s singing with that pretty voice.

He just lets her lead, not pulling away, not making a move to lean in. Clint’s more than aware of the birds and the bees, and at least ninety-two percent of his focus is devoted to not letting those bees fly away wherever they please. So he just bites his lip and watches her fingers press against his, imitating the tap of the symbols.

“And he goes…” She hums deep, obviously mocking Barnes’ forced gravelly tone with ‘hey’s thrown in every so often, and Clint doesn’t even try to fight back the laugh.

“And she goes…” he says, going ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ for a few moments in Barnes’ out-of-place for the Midwest Brooklyn boy accent. He taps his toes in time with Nat’s hands, rests his head against her shoulder where she’s pushed up close.

From here, he smells lilac and danger. She’s not much smaller than him, but she’s got more power in those lean arms. He can feel the tension of her bicep coiling beneath his neck every time she lifts his hand and sets it back down. He can feel the beat of her heart thrumming against his cheek, pulsing in time with his feet as they crescendo into echoed mock-ups of Barney and Barnes’ goofy vocals.

Eventually, however, it blends into something pretty. Something Nat’s and Clint’s; something theirs. Vaguely he senses the pause in Bucky and Steve’s ministrations, hears the click of the door as Barney returns to the room but he doesn’t care about those things. Right now, he’s making something great, making it with Nat and while he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he knows he likes it.

“And who am I-”

“I don’t even know myself-”

“And who are you-”

“Just let me know before I fall-”

And so on and so forth, Clint lets himself be carried away with it. He’s not particularly fond of singing in front of people, but he knows that while most people think Barney and Clint’s similarities end with their faces, excepting Clint’s good looks obviously, they span far into their talents and their quirks. It’s how Barney found out Clint was so into Nat. It’s how Clint knew that Barney would love music.

“Waking up is harder with empty space,” Nat rumbles into his hair, pulling her hands from his and sliding them to his chest. He follows them with his own, laying them out over the flat plane of skin interrupted by thin tendon that makes up her hands.

“Nothing can replace,” he starts.

“This love I found,” they finish, together.

The clapping doesn’t even register to them until a minute later, when Barney sets a hand down in Clint’s knee and pulls him out of his trance. “Bro,” he says. “Bro, you’ve gotta sing. You too, Nat.”

He blinks, completely and utterly at a loss. “What?” he asks, feeling for all intents and purposes, like a kid who lost his mom at the grocery store.

“C’mon, dipshit, front and center.”

Then he’s being heaved up, and it’s all he can do to reach behind him and grope for Nat’s hand, heaving her up along with him. They stumble up to the stage together, and Clint automatically reaches for the guitar resting on Barney’s self-made stand.

Sparing a glance behind him, he notices Nat reaching for the acoustic before walking up beside him. She rests her head on his shoulder and gives him another tiny smile, just like the one she gave him earlier from behind the kit.

He smiles back before asking, “Count us in?”

She nods and snaps her fingers, murmuring a soft, “One, two, three, four,” under her breath.

And so they play.


End file.
